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The headline on a critique in today’s New York Times says it all: “Wonderful? Sorry, George, It’s a Pitiful, Dreadful Life.” Nothing more clearly illustrates the paper’s hatred of normalcy than its revisionist perspective on “It’s A Wonderful Life.” The moral of the 1946 Capra classic — life has meaning. Even if we don’t achieve our dreams, even if our existence is seemingly hum-drum, those who lead good lives will never know how much good they’ve done. George Bailey does, by glimpsing what his world would look like if he’d never been born. He discovers (to paraphrase the film) that...

Robert J. Anderson, a former child actor best known for playing the young George Bailey in the 1946 Christmas film classic "It's a Wonderful Life," has died. He was 75. Anderson was 12 when director Frank Capra cast him as Jimmy Stewart's youthful counterpart in the heartwarming tale set in Bedford Falls. As the adult George Bailey contemplates suicide, his life is told in flashback so his guardian angel Clarence can get to know him. Young George rescues his brother from drowning, dreams about being an explorer and saves the town pharmacist, Mr. Gower, from accidentally poisoning a customer. The...

SENECA FALLS, N.Y. - Zuzu has a cold again. She sniffles and sucks on a cold pill as she signs autographs for fans lined up to the door in a coffee shop. Karolyn Grimes jokes that she left her coat open, like her character Zuzu Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life." A more likely culprit is the holiday crunch of appearances by the former child actress _ from a Victorian festival in Puyallup, Wash., to the Colorado Country Christmas Show and now to Seneca Falls, which claims to be the inspiration for director Frank Capra's mythical Bedford Falls. Around...

The disease of America Hatred now has reached pandemic proportions in many corners of the globe, spreading far beyond the predictably hopeless fever swamps of Islamic militants, French intellectuals, or Latin American demagogues. In fact, many citizens within the USA itself energetically embrace the basic assumptions of America Hatred, perceiving their country as an unequivocally negative force on the world scene. John Tirman, director of MIT’s prestigious Center for International Studies, recently wrote a book called “100 Ways America is Screwing Up the World.” When questioned on my radio show, he refused to dismiss the notion that humanity might have...

Mr. Potter is WinningAll hail Pottersville! Above are two different articles that use the Jimmy Stewart/Donna Reed Holiday classic Its a Wonderful Life as a basis for attacking Republicans. This is a widespread meme, I've seen it in other places but couldn't find them online. Basically these articles suggest that mean old Mr. Potter was obviously a Republican because he worked to keep the people of Beford Falls poor and without the things they wanted. He was always out for himself and profits and paid no mind to the concerns of the little people. Personally I think it's disgusting that...

Greenville) Nov. 25, 2004 - A man's pickup truck crashed into the Saluda River, and a woman jumped into the cold water, below which the vehicle was barely visible, to pull him to safety, "It was cold. I didn't think it was gonna be that cold, but it was cold.". Donnitta Burns shrugs off her life-saving exploits, "I just jumped in the river, pulled the man out of the truck, did CPR, and they pulled us out. Yeah, that was it." "He came right down through here and right straight down into the river." Joan Chastain, who witnessed the rescue,...

The Richest Man in Town The small, every-day things make a Wonderful Life. William E. Saracino William E. Saracino is a member of California Political Review’s editorial board. This being my last column before Christmas, I invoke a point of personal privilege, opting out of my usual political ponderings to offer thoughts more apropos of the season. You don’t have to know me very well to discover that I think It’s A Wonderful Life is perhaps the finest movie ever made. Oh, not judging on technical standards, though the movie is quite well done. Wonderful Life is a great movie...